The Court of Arbitration for Russia’s Northwest Federal District last week let stand all prior court decisions obligating VKontakte.ru (VK.com), Russia’s number one social network, to pay Gala Records, the first private record label in Russia, a total of 550,000 rubles (about $17,700) in damages for illicit displays of 11 tracks by MakSim, a Russian pop diva.
VKontakte argued that “searches for the music in question were blocked following a lawsuit by the copyright owner.”
However, the latest legal decision has deemed this line of reasoning fallacious: the court “soundly established the fact of the violation of the plaintiff’s rights to the tracks,” underscoring that the defendant took no action to avoid the offense prior to the lawsuit.
VKontakte’s woes with Gala began in 2011; at that time the social network tried to settle a dispute out of court. Renewed friction flared up in February 2012 over the MakSim tracks, a longstanding point of contention between the litigators. The legal action culminated last October in the St. Petersburg appellate court, which sustained the February ruling that had found VKontakte guilty on most counts.
The social network has twice appealed the October court order compelling it to pay Gala $1,600 per track, the second time after the Thirteenth Arbitrage Court of Appeals had once again upheld the initial ruling in January.
Source: RIA Novosti
